Selected quad for the lemma: heaven_n
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A67828
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A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and aldermen at Guild-Hall Chappel, February 4, 1682 by Edward Young ...
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Young, Edward, 1641 or 2-1705.
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1683
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Wing Y67; ESTC R34113
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12,981
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still remains which of them is meant in the Text and I conclude that in the Text is meant the Kingdom of Grace for these following Reasons First because Grace must necessarily be first in Order and accordingly the Apostle is express St. Iames 4. 6. God giveth Grace to the Humble Secondly Because the single vertue of Humility cannot by it self be intitled to Glory but only in conjunction with those other vertues that must be built upon it And Thirdly Because of other parallel Texts which may serve to guide us in the interpretation of This particularly that in St. Luke 18. 17. where our Saviour says that Except a man receive the Kingdom of Heaven as a little Child he shall in no wise enter therein In which words as the Resemblance of a little Child doth expresly signifie the Duty of my Text so by the Kingdom of Heaven that must be Received that must be taken into us cannot possibly be meant any thing but the Discipline of Grace in our hearts For these Reasons I conclude that by the Kingdom of Heaven in the Text is meant the State of Grace or the present Christian State And so the meaning of the whole Verse will appear to be this viz. That the Humble Man is blessed because he is properly dispos'd and qualifi'd to become a true Disciple a good Christian. This being the meaning of the words I shall form my Discourse upon them in this Method 1. I shall shew the nature and reasonableness of the Duty of Humility 2. I shall shew its influence usefulness and necessity in order to attaining the true Christian state First Humility is a quality that relates not to Mens Fortunes but their Minds It calls no man from his Rank nor divests him of his Titles Poverty of Spirit is well consistent with height of Place and the Overtures of Grace are as free to the Great and Noble as to the Mean and Poor of the World I confess 't is too commonly seen that Men do yield up their Minds to their Fortunes and lose the measure of themselves in the Bulk of that which hangs about them And this indeed is the reason why the Apostle has said Not many Mighty not many Noble But though this be common in Effect 't is no way necessary in its Cause David though the Head of a splendid Court could give this Testimony of himself Lord I am not high-minded I have no proud look and I hope that this Honourable Assembly can produce many instances of such as are Great in Character and as Great in Condescentions We need not therefore Debase our selves to be Humble and much less need we Calumniate our selves We need not make our selves worse than we are and charge our selves with Hyperbole's of Faults and Infirmities to become Vile in our own Eyes No Humility is always the greatest piece of Justice in the world For be our Condition what it will let us but know it as really it is and we need no other argument to make us humble Pride is of that kind of Admiration which always proceeds from Ignorance and Mistake There is no room for it when we know our selves as we are but only when we feign our selves such as we would be when we suffer none but Affection to be our Painter when we are so pleas'd with the account that Self-love brings in of us that we thereupon stifle all farther search When we have admitted this Imposture to pass upon our understanding 't is then only we admit of an Opinion of our selves And this intimates the Reason why the Softest Heads are always puft up the soonest Humility therefore though it be commonly esteemed the greatest piece of Self-denial in the world yet in sober reality it is far from it It is no other than the bare Owning of our selves Whereof I proceed to give you proof 'T is a strong Sarcasm upon humane Pride that we meet with Eccl. x. 18. where 't is said Pride was not made for Man For fancy Pride where you will 't is no where so improper no where so unbecoming as in Man Not because his Make is only of the common Clay neither temper'd nor figur'd nor ting'd more elegantly than that of other Creatures as infirm and putrid and contemptible as any of theirs This is but the least part of his abasement 'T is a smaller disgrace to his Pedigree that Corruption is his Father and the Worm his Mother and Sister than that Sin is his Off-spring His Make is but Common but his Depravation is wholly Singular he being the only Evil disorderly and ungovernable Creature in the world Let the Sea then be proud whose Waves know their bounds Let the Beasts be proud who live agreeable to the Laws of their Nature The Locusts and Catterpillars who are God's armies The Wind and Storm that fulfil his word But let not Man the only Rebel in Nature that stands distinguish'd from the rest of the Creation not so much by his Reason as by his Guilt the only Heir of Wrath and Shame and Misery let not him be Proud Pride was not made for Him I confess this Prospect that I have now given of Man shews him at the Least but let us turn the Glass then and look on him in his fairest and best Estate let us look upon his Nature as ennobled with all the Perfections that it is capable of And are not the Accomplishments of Art and Aides of Fortune and Endowments of Wisdom and Virtue Valuable things and matters of esteem and may not the itch of our Imagination please it self with these I confess that all these are indeed Valuable things but I assert farther That Man ought not to value himself for them For here lies the Point They are not His They are God's only intrusted to him they are so many Sums received for which he stands accountable they are Treasures and Talents committed to the Earthen Vessel but yet the Vessel it self is no more than Earthen still And therefore though the Evil we are obnoxious to be the most proper matter of our Humility yet we may find that there is Argument for Humility to be drawn from every thing that is Good in us I call it Good in us because the calling of Good Ours has been the Cause of too much mischief It being the sole Hinge that Humane Pride turns it self upon 'T is from the prejudice of a Vulgar mistake that we call any advantages supervenient to our nature by the name of Acquisitions as if the getting of them might be attributed to the glory of our own Counsels and endeavours The notion is absolutely false in Divinity where we are taught that they are all Gifts and Receptions What hast thou says St. Paul directing his question to the Boaster What hast thou that thou hast not received 'T is God that to the attainment of all Outward good things gives both the Means and the use and the Issue that to the attainment of all Inward
Pritchard Mayor Martis vi die Februarii 1682. Annoque Regis Caroli Secund. Angl. c. xxxvi THis Court doth desire Mr. Young to Print his Sermon Preached before the Lord Mayor and Aldermen at the Guild-Hall Chappel on Sunday Morning last Wagstaffe A SERMON PREACHED Before the Right Honourable THE Lord Mayor AND ALDERMEN AT Guild-Hall Chappel February 4. 1682. By Edward Young Fellow of the College near Winchester LONDON Printed by I. Wallis for Walter Kettilby at the Bishops-Head in S. Pauls Church-Yard 1683. A SERMON Preach'd before the LORD MAYOR ON S. Matthew Chap. v. vers 3. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven THE Christian State that is a Holy Life is frequently exprest in the Scriptures by the Metaphor of a Building and the Metaphor may suggest thus much unto us That there is a certain Order to be observed in raising the Moral Structure as well as the Mechanical There are some Virtues proper for the Foundation upon which all the rest must be built and without which they cannot stand such are all those that tend to the humbling of our minds as a true knowledge of our selves and a conviction of our unworthiness and a just abhorrency of our natural corrupt desires There are others proper for the superstructure and finishing of the work such are all those that tend to the raising of our Affections as Love Joy Hope and Confidence in God Now whosoever in his Building shall neglect this Order and intend the raising of his Affections before the humbling of his Mind he that shall affect the Love of God before the Mortification of Nature a Zeal for Religion before the condescentions of Charity a sort of spiritual Saintship before a moral Change such a one is like that foolish builder mentioned by our Saviour in the close of this his Sermon on the Mount he may make a fair shew of a house but he bottoms it upon the sand and when wind and storm and flood that is when any searching temptation shall come and assault it it will certainly fall It was not therefore casually or without a particular design that our Saviour began his holy institution with this Duty of the Text and recommended Poverty of Spirit to his Disciples before all other The very Order it bears imports no less than this That Poverty of Spirit is a Duty that requires the beginning of our care and the first of our applications because that so long as we are without it it is impossible for us to make any holding progress into the state of Christianity Which truth will farther appear from the explication of the words In order to which I shall determine these two Questions First Who are meant by the poor in Spirit Secondly What is meant by the Kingdom of Heaven to which the poor in Spirit are here intitled As to the First I take these words Blessed are the poor in Spirit to bear a parallel sense to those we meet with Psal. 15. where the Psalmist having put the question Lord who shall dwell in thy Tabernacle and who shall rest upon thy holy Hill He answers ver 4. He that is lowly in his own eyes In which expression we know that by Eyes is meant the inward sight of Imagination that faculty of the Soul wherein we form our Images and conceptions of Things and value them accordingly So that by Lowly in his own Eyes is meant a Man little in his own Conceit and esteem Now the word Spirit as it relates to Man is taken indifferently to signifie either the whole Soul or any of its faculties and I presume that in the Text it is taken to signifie this particular faculty of Imagination and so Poor in Spirit and Lowly in his own Eyes appear to be expressions of the same importance they carry in them the same notion and thought and denote a person that is Little in his own conceit or esteem that is in a word an Humble Man I confess that the word Spirit is most frequently used to signifie the Irascible or passionate part of the Soul and so Poor in Spirit might naturally be interpreted of such a one as is little in Passion calm in Resenting slow to Anger but then this Beatitude would fall to be the same with that at the 5th v. viz. Blessed are the Meek which as we cannot easily guess to have been intended so we must reasonably conclude that by Poor in Spirit in the Text is meant no other than the Humble Man I come to the second Question viz. What is meant by the Kingdom of Heaven to which the poor in Spirit are intitled It is evident from many passages in Scripture that this Phrase The Kingdom of Heaven does signifie not only the Future blessed State where the Faithful are said to reign with Christ in a full participation of Immortality and Glory but it likewise signifies the present Christian state where Christ is said to reign over the Faithful by the influences of his Grace and the discipline of his Gospel Thus the holy Spirit hath thought fit to signifie Man's Happiness and his Duty by the very same expression Whether First To suggest one principal point of Wisdom that is That we should never think of our Happiness but we should at the same time think of our Duty too and the necessary dependance that the one hath upon the other Or Secondly To intimate that the Kingdom of Heaven both here and hereafter that is the two states of a Christian in this Life and in the next though they differ in Circumstances yet in the main Essential they are but one and the same For Example It is but an accidental Circumstance to a Christian that he be either a Traveller or a Citizen that he be either Militant or Triumphant but it is an everlasting Essential to him that he be Holy and in this both states must agree As therefore the Kingdom of Heaven may justly ravish our thoughts with the notion it bears of the Beatifick presence of God of the Company of Angels of Glory Pleafures and Joys that are unmixt and eternal so it may as justly serve to awaken our Care and diligence and strict Inspection of our selves to consider that this very Kingdom must be begun within us we must Here lead the Heavenly Life we must Here conform in Saintship to the Blessed that are above and all the Graces that they have in Perfection we must here have in Degrees and all aspiring towards perfection 'T is the Kingdom so begun that shall have its consummation in bliss But if the Spirit of this Kingdom do not work in us and change us Here if our corrupt inclinations do not dye before us but we continue Filthy the Future State can never change us By subduction of the Means by incapacity of the Subject by irreversible Doom we must be Filthy still The Kingdom of Heaven bearing these two different significations of Grace and Glory the Question